Making your site search engine friendlyRendre votre site convivial aux moteurs de recherche

Terms like search engine optimization (SEO), metadata, ranking and search engine marketing (SEM) can be a bit confusing. I will instead give you three basic ways to get your site more visibility on any search engine.

Follow accessibility standards

This is the most technical point, but the most critical of all three points. It demands the know-how from your web professional. The main focus is on making your content available and providing coherent HTML code.
Accessibility standards include:

Providing alternative text to anything non-textual or complex,

Using headings sequentially,

Conserving the purpose (semantics) of all HTML code,

Making the content of links and destination comprehensible as is.

Get known outside of your sphere

Use external resources to attract attention to your site. Social Networking sites are a great way of increasing your online presence. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google + are the most well known social networking sites, but there are much more out there. They all have different particularities. It is up to you to judge which one fits your needs most. You can also participate in forums, discussion boards and sites with comments that target your desired audience.

Web tools from your favourite search engine

All of the major search engines have what is called “Webmaster tools”. Search engines provide us with the possibility to send them data about your site directly. Data like your site URL and an index of your site, in turn they provide you with basic information on your site and submit it to their database (webcrawler).

Remember that making your site appear in search results takes time and dedication. There are no magic tricks to make your site be in the top results. The tips I gave you should give you a head start into attracting more people to your site.